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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22418797">Midas is king and he holds me so tight</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunehasgivenup/pseuds/fortunehasgivenup'>fortunehasgivenup</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Girls (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Jealousy, Light Bondage, Mythology References, Partners in Crime, Possessive Sex, Post-Season/Series 02, Tenderness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:33:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,361</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22418797</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunehasgivenup/pseuds/fortunehasgivenup</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the days after the dust settles, Beth learns not only that you have to kill the king to be the king, but if you kill the king, you have to become the king. And being the king isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.</p>
<p>Be careful what you wish for.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beth Boland/Rio</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>240</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Midas is king and he holds me so tight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s a saying - be careful what you wish for. There’s countless stories that back it up.</p>
<p>And yet, each and every person in those stories is somehow convinced that they will be the one to avoid the inevitability of that reversal of fortunes.</p>
<p>Beth Boland was no different.</p>
<p>One moment, she wanted nothing more than for Rio to go away, to just leave her alone and stop <i>pushing</i> her so much. </p>
<p>And she got it.</p>
<p>The come down didn’t happen right away. It took a few days to build. </p>
<p>The horror. The guilt. Grief. </p>
<p>It all sank its claws into her, but that wasn’t the worst.</p>
<p>The worst was when she realized that Rio’s maxim was not only true - if you want to be the king, you gotta kill the king - but that it worked in the reverse. If you kill the king, you are the king.</p>
<p>There were two choices left to her. She could take the position and hold it, like Rio had, or wait for someone to come for her, intending to coronate themselves in her blood. </p>
<p>“You can’t make something from nothing, Beth,” her mother used to scold. Kingship, it appeared, could not be made entirely new either. It had to be taken from another.</p>
<p>So she took it.</p>
<p>And encountered another set of problems. Diplomacy. At least with this, she had practice.</p>
<p>She could make nice, play well with others. She was <i>good</i> at it. Beth was good at making money grow, she quickly discovered. Now that she had capital and control, she could spread it around, test out different things. Most of them worked and the ones that didn’t - she cut her losses.</p>
<p>But in almost every direction that she turned, was Ricardo.</p>
<p>Ricardo was what Rio had sheltered her from, whether he’d been doing it for her or for himself. Ricardo was old school, had been in the game since before Beth was born. His family even longer than that, stretching back to the old country, as Ricardo explained, cutting a noxious smelling cigar.</p>
<p>The thing with kings is that not all kings are equal. There are client kings, puppet kings, kings always at war, kings getting lazy in their old age, and young ones that have just risen through the ranks to take the throne. The vulnerable kings.</p>
<p>So she made a deal. Better to trade with the devil than let him consume you whole.</p>
<p>Better to meet him every couple of weeks with a bag of cash in exchange for him staying out of your way.</p>
<p>All of which had led her here, sitting across from the old codger yet again. As one of his guys, one of the younger ones, counted the cash, Ricardo flipped his lighter over, then tapped it on the table. </p>
<p>“Elizabeth,” he said with a hint of condescension - just as he always spoke to her, “you are my golden goose.”</p>
<p>Beth let her eyebrow go up at that and lifted her coffee to her lips. “Ricardo, I’m not sure that that’s a good comparison.”</p>
<p>“Why not?” he laughed. “You make me money, like a golden goose.”</p>
<p>“Are you familiar with how that story ends?” </p>
<p>He shook his head. </p>
<p>“The farmer’s wife gets greedy and insists that the goose must have all of those golden eggs inside of it. She has her husband kill the goose. There’s nothing there and now they have no goose laying golden eggs.”</p>
<p>“So,” he steepled his fingers, “you are saying that I should not cut you open looking for golden eggs?”</p>
<p>He winked at her and if Beth hadn’t seen him order an execution like he was ordering an espresso, she would think of him as a kind old man. The type that had a pocketful of candies for his grandkids and didn’t allow phones at his dinner table.</p>
<p>He was also a stone cold killer. Willing to get his hands dirty when the situation required it. For all that he was at least in his 60s, Beth had seen him wield a knife with ease. Slowly.</p>
<p>“More or less,” she answered, draining the dregs of the mug. “Was that everything for this week?”</p>
<p>Ricardo nodded. “Of course. I will see you soon, beautiful Elizabeth.”</p>
<p>Beth stood up and swung her coat over her shoulders. She always had to fight the instinct to look back over her shoulder as she left. It would show weakness and weakness in a king was fatal.</p>
<p>——————</p>
<p>“Should be more careful.”</p>
<p>Beth shut her eyes. “You aren’t here.”</p>
<p>The deep chuckle settled in Beth’s belly like a stone. “You can’t fuck with a man like that, Elizabeth.”</p>
<p>“He calls me that too,” she told him.</p>
<p>An arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her back until she was leaning against Rio’s solid chest. “You like it when he calls you that?”</p>
<p>She shook her head. “No. Only you.”</p>
<p>“Good.” His lips settled on the shell of her ear and rubbed.</p>
<p>“You said you shouldn’t be seen here,” she reminded him as she put her hand over his.</p>
<p>“And I wasn’t,” he said. “Had Cisco drop me off on the other block and I came through the backyards. Your neighbours have shit security.”</p>
<p>Beth’s laugh was more of a sigh. “So I should go over and tell them to put in motion sensor lights or something so that no one can sneak up on me in the night?”</p>
<p>“No. You should move out of this fucking house.” It was a familiar refrain. Next he would say - “I can’t protect you here.” </p>
<p>Ah, there it was.</p>
<p>“And I need to have paid more of my mortgage before I sell,” Beth said.</p>
<p>“Let me take care of it for you.” He brushed her hair off to the side.</p>
<p>She shook her head. Beth was tired of men taking care of things for her. His sigh was one of frustration.</p>
<p>“What did you and him talk about?” he finally asked.</p>
<p>Beth rubbed the back of his hand. “He called me his golden goose. I told him that that story ended badly for everyone - not just the goose.”</p>
<p>“I don’t like you going in alone.”</p>
<p>“I’m not alone,” Beth reminded him.</p>
<p>“You have one guy with you and he’s practically a child,” Rio scoffed.</p>
<p>“You vouched for him.”</p>
<p>“Because it couldn’t be one of my guys,” he said, re-treading a familiar argument. They seemed to be doing that a lot lately, going in circles. “The ones that are known to be mine.”</p>
<p>“I know,” she tried to soothe his ruffled pride. He hated being on the outside, watching. Waiting.</p>
<p>Though she hadn’t noticed him on her way out of Ricardo’s, Beth assumed that he’d been somewhere nearby, waiting to see that she came out. Safe and whole.</p>
<p>“We gotta end this soon,” he said.</p>
<p>Beth agreed, but knowing what she knew of Rio’s plan, she didn’t say it out loud. The end was going to be just as bloody as the beginning.</p>
<p>————————————</p>
<p>“You did not like the idea that you are a golden goose,” Ricardo said as soon as she took a seat at their next meeting.</p>
<p>“No,” Beth agreed, “I did not.”</p>
<p>He nodded. “King Midas then. Everything he touched turned to gold.” He laughed. “That fits much better, I think.”</p>
<p>Beth’s shoulders stiffened. “King Midas lost everyone and everything because of that,” she said. “Turned his family to gold, killing them.”</p>
<p>“I remember the story,” Ricardo replied, still amused. “Be careful what you wish for, my grandmother would say. I took a different lesson.”</p>
<p>“And what’s that?” Beth said when he didn’t elaborate.</p>
<p>His grin was deeply unsettling as he reached out and grabbed her hand. “When you are on a quest for wealth and power, you will destroy those you love, so it is better not to love. A lesson no one bothered to teach you, I think.”</p>
<p>Beth stared at Ricardo, then looked down at her hand, clenched in his grasp. “Let go of me,” she said. It took everything she had to keep her tone even.</p>
<p>Ricardo was still smiling as he shook his head. “Elizabeth, I don’t think that you understand.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I understand,” she told him. “You’re threatening me. What you’re neglecting to remember is that the second you act, I have no reason to do anything more for you. You’ll have blown your wad too early and there’ll be nothing to show for it.”</p>
<p>He chuckled, then let go of her hand. “Is this what Rio did?”</p>
<p>Beth didn’t flinch, just drew her hand away from him.</p>
<p>“He blew his wad with you and so you blew him away?” Ricardo’s grin was cruel. “I’ve heard that he’s back from the dead. He coming for you, Elizabeth?”</p>
<p>“Who knows?” She shrugged.</p>
<p>Ricardo sighed. “Never mix business with emotion, Elizabeth. Someone always gets hurt. If you’re lucky, it isn’t you. Even then, if you are not cold enough, it will still hurt. And you, Elizabeth, are not cold. You have too much kindness in you.” He made a noise in the back of his throat. “Women are not suited to this business,” he said in the end.</p>
<p>“Are you threatening my family?” Beth asked.</p>
<p>He shrugged. “Maybe, maybe no.”</p>
<p>“I need to know that you’re not going to hurt my family,” she said.</p>
<p>“What proof can I give you?” He shook his head. “There are no promises or guarantees in this life and only a fool trusts in them. I will not harm your family,” he said, “unless I do.”</p>
<p>Beth clenched her teeth.</p>
<p>He leaned back in his chair, lifting his glass in a toast. “To King Midas.”</p>
<p>Beth knew that she was expected to drink as well, so she did. Whiskey, as always. It was what she had told him she wanted the first meeting. “To gold,” she said, then tossed the rest of her glass back.</p>
<p>“Is that all?” she asked when she set down her glass.</p>
<p>Ricardo inclined his head. “You may go back to your children.”</p>
<p>—————————</p>
<p>“You’re dragging this out,” Beth said, rubbing her temples in an attempt to dispel her tension headache.</p>
<p>He grunted, not looking up from his phone.</p>
<p>“I can’t keep doing this, Rio,” she said, looking at him in the reflection of her mirror. “And you know it. You’re being -“ she hunted for a word, “cruel to make me keep going in there.”</p>
<p>Rio put his phone aside and laughed in disbelief. “I’m the cruel one?” he asked. “Which one of us put three bullets in the other, Elizabeth?”</p>
<p>She flinched, breath catching, and her whole body tensing.</p>
<p>It was true. She had put three bullets in his chest. At the time, she’d meant to kill him.</p>
<p>She hadn’t expected the relief when she’d discovered that he had survived.</p>
<p>———Months earlier———</p>
<p>Rio was waiting for her in the kitchen, same as he had the first time he’d come to her house.</p>
<p>This time, Beth didn’t have a bag of groceries to drop, so it was just her keys that made a dull thump as they fell.</p>
<p>“Relax, Elizabeth,” he said in that familiar low rasp of his. “I ain’t here to hurt you.”</p>
<p>Shaking slightly, she approached, looking around for the rest of his boys, but he was alone. When her eyes came back to Rio, he was amused.</p>
<p>“Not gonna say anything to me?” Rio asked, sliding off of the counter to walk towards her. “Nothing?”</p>
<p>“How did you -“ she can’t even finish the sentence.</p>
<p>He smiled and finished for her. “How did I survive?”</p>
<p>Beth nodded.</p>
<p>“Not sure if you did it on purpose,” Rio said, getting close, “or if you can’t aim for shit, but you managed to miss all the important stuff.”</p>
<p>She swallowed, unable to produce any moisture in her mouth.</p>
<p>“Agent Turner was happy to call an ambulance for me once I promised to work with him.” He circled around her. “What the fuck were you thinking, getting into bed with Ricardo Fiorino?”</p>
<p>Beth turned to face him. How had he -</p>
<p>His eyes were hard.</p>
<p>“Is that why you’re showing yourself now?” She asked. “Because I’m working with someone that's not <i>you</i>?”</p>
<p>“I’m here,” Rio hissed, “because you just made a deal with a murderous sociopath. You think Fiorino is going to laugh when you mess up, think he’ll give you another shot when your numbers aren’t quite where they’re supposed to be?”</p>
<p>Beth stood stiffly.</p>
<p>“He’ll kill you, Elizabeth,” he warned, “and then once you’re dead, he’ll go after your family anyways just to prove a fucking point for the next fuck who gets into bed with him.”</p>
<p>Beth put her hands on his chest and tried to push him away. “Oh, so when he sent a car, I should have ignored it? How would that have gone, Rio? I’m handling it.”</p>
<p>He rocked back slightly, but got right back into her face as he laughed. “You’re handling it? You’ve barely got your head above water and Fiorino’s a fucking wave coming to sweep you under.”</p>
<p>“What do I do then?” Beth’s voice got quiet. “I’m tired, Rio.”</p>
<p>Rio softened slightly. “Not easy being king, huh?” Rio asked, his anger dissipating.</p>
<p>She shook her head. “I’m not the king. I’m the fool.”</p>
<p>He lifted his hand and swept Beth’s hair back, tucking it behind her ear. “Then let’s fool some people.”</p>
<p>————— Now —————</p>
<p>Beth could see Rio in the mirror of the vanity, lounging much the same way he had the first time that he’d been there. </p>
<p>So much was different now though. </p>
<p>Now there were three scars on his chest marking where she’d shot him. </p>
<p>Now she worked for someone else.</p>
<p>“How much longer can this last?” she asked, rolling a tube of lipstick back and forth.</p>
<p>Movement. He sat up, shoving a pillow behind his back. “Not much longer.”</p>
<p>“I can’t be around him that much longer,” Beth shivered, “not without him figuring out why I’m not afraid of you.”</p>
<p>“You should be afraid of me,” Rio answered quietly.</p>
<p>Beth met his eyes in the mirror. “You know what I mean.”</p>
<p>“A week,” he said. “No more.”</p>
<p>She drew in a ragged breath. “I can’t sleep when you aren’t here.”</p>
<p>He made a noise that might have been encouragement.</p>
<p>“When you aren’t, I dream that you never come back.”</p>
<p>“It’s a possibility. It’s always a possibility, Elizabeth,” he reminded her. “That’s what our lives are.”</p>
<p>She nodded, but couldn’t ignore the tears building up in her eyes. “Is this how it always will be now? Wondering if I get to come home. Wondering if home will be here when I get back or if someone will have taken it from me.”</p>
<p>She got up and went back to the bed, climbed in with him and laid down on his chest, listening to his heartbeat and letting it calm her.</p>
<p>“Wondering if you’ll be here,” Beth added, running her fingers up and down his belly. His muscles jumped at her touch and she found herself drawing swirls around his belly button. When he inhaled a little sharper than he had been doing, she flattened her hand and scratched lightly at the thin line of hair that led down into his underwear.</p>
<p>“I’m here, ain’t I?” Rio said softly. His hand, so much bigger than hers, settled over hers and led it down until she was cupping him. “After all you’ve done to me.”</p>
<p>She bit her lip, squeezing him. “Not just for this?”</p>
<p>He snorted. “Can get this anywhere I want it, Elizabeth. From women that haven’t shot me or gotten me arrested,” he said as he reached over to slide his hand inside her panties. “Remember that.”</p>
<p>“Like I could ever forget,” Beth retorted, voice breaking on the last word as he slipped a finger inside her.</p>
<p>————————</p>
<p>Beth was sitting at the restaurant where she met with Ricardo when there was a commotion at the door. She and Ricardo both turned their heads in that direction at the same time, although Beth relaxed slightly. It was almost over.</p>
<p>Rio sauntered into the room, there was no other way to describe his movement.</p>
<p>Ricardo stared at him. “What do I owe this pleasure to?”</p>
<p>Instead of answering, Rio slid into the booth next to Beth and lifted his arm to rest on the back, just hovering over her shoulder. “We good, baby?”</p>
<p>Beth could see Ricardo’s shock flash on his face before she turned to Rio and leaned over to kiss him. “All good.”</p>
<p>Ricardo looked back and forth between the two of them, then threw his head back and laughed. “I see.”</p>
<p>“No,” Rio said, “you don’t. You never fucking did.”</p>
<p>Ricardo met Rio’s eyes. There was a manic gleam to them as he smiled. “You were always weak for women, Rio.”</p>
<p>Rio’s fingers stroked up Beth’s neck. “Nah. You just always underestimate them.” Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a gun. It wasn’t his ridiculous golden one - he’d gotten rid of that.</p>
<p>“It’s too hot,” he’d said, taking it apart. Each piece would go somewhere different.</p>
<p>This one was plain, but as he passed it to Beth, it felt anything but.</p>
<p>Ricardo leaned back. “You couldn’t even kill him,” he taunted Beth. “You’re going to kill me?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Beth said.</p>
<p>Ricardo’s lips twisted into a sneer and she could just hear him coming up with some demeaning comment about how weak she was. He opened his mouth.</p>
<p>Beth pulled the trigger.</p>
<p>———————————————</p>
<p>There are other sayings. Never accept gifts from the devil. Stay away from forbidden fruit.</p>
<p>Beth had always wondered how you were supposed to know that it was forbidden. Was she Eve, who had been warned, but took the fruit regardless? Was she Prosperina, simply trying to sate her hunger only to discover that those six seeds had sealed her fate when it was too late?</p>
<p>Sometimes she leaned towards one answer, other times she thought the opposite. She hadn’t known what robbing that Fine &amp; Frugal would bring. But she had known what Rio was, who he was, when she left her pearls for him in that grimy warehouse.</p>
<p>Have her steps into the underworld of Detroit been deliberate or has she just been slipping the whole way?</p>
<p>Beth couldn’t quite figure it out - couldn’t separate what she wanted from what she knew.</p>
<p>She wasn’t completely unaware of how it appeared - the way that she slipped between the bright and loving Beth Boland, mother of four, and the uncaring, cold figure of Elizabeth, who was Rio’s.</p>
<p>Rio did it too - so well that Beth still wasn’t sure which one was the mask. Was it the man who watched cartoons with Marcus on Saturday mornings? Was it the man that had no trouble with the death that he so often left in his wake?  </p>
<p>She asked him about it once, shortly after he came back from the dead.</p>
<p>Rio had laughed. “Ain’t no mask, Elizabeth. They’re both the same man. You gotta stop thinking in terms of either/or. You can’t pretend one version of you doesn’t exist while you’re acting the part of another. You’re a killer even when you’re with your kids. You’re a mother even when you’re making moves to get product across the border.”</p>
<p>Beth hadn’t gotten any better at that in the time since.</p>
<p>With Ricardo dead, his boys scattered. Some scrambled to take over his position at the top, others took their chance and ran.</p>
<p>But they recognized who it was that had toppled Ricardo and they steered clear of Rio. And, as a result, Beth.</p>
<p>“Careful what you wish for,” Beth said a few days later. “You just might get it.”</p>
<p>Rio lifted his tea to his lips and took a sip. “Did I get what I wished for?”</p>
<p>“Ricardo’s dead, you’re not.” She shrugged. “You’ve got me where you want me.”</p>
<p>Head tilted back, he studied her and Beth could feel both sets of eyes on her like lasers. She’d learned a thing or two about how birds of prey hunted since she met Rio. She sat still even though she wanted to shift. They tracked by movement.</p>
<p>“If I’d wanted you dead,” Rio told her, “I would have killed you.”</p>
<p>“You could get me put away for murder,” Beth reminded him. They’d taken care of the gun - dismantling and cleaning each piece separately - and cleaned themselves very carefully. Rio had a guy who came in to clean the bar of any sign that they’d been there.</p>
<p>But there were ways. Rio always had ways.</p>
<p>He cocked his head. “Why would I do that?” he seemed genuinely confused by the suggestion.</p>
<p>“To punish me,” Beth said.</p>
<p>He tapped his fingers against his mug. “Eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”</p>
<p>Beth gave him a disgusted look. She hated it when he spoke in vague terms and he knew it.</p>
<p>“How about this,” Rio said. “I don’t hurt you, don’t get you put in jail, any of that shit because it’d be a case of cutting off my nose to spite my face.”</p>
<p>“So I’m useful to you.”</p>
<p>Rio sighed and shook his head. “You are, but that ain’t why I keep you around.”</p>
<p>“Then why do you?”</p>
<p>He scowled. “It ever occur to you that I’m capable of emotional attachment too?”</p>
<p>Beth blinked. “Yes, of course. I’ve seen you with Marcus.”</p>
<p>Rio muttered something under his breath that Beth had no chance to hear. “You think he’s the only one I’m attached to?”</p>
<p>Beth shrugged. He had no other family beyond a handful of friends he’d grown up with.</p>
<p>“Why I always gotta spell everything out for you, Elizabeth?” he asked with a shake of his head. </p>
<p>—————————</p>
<p>Over time, Rio started taking Beth with him on other business. There were strict rules though and the one time she broke them, he refused to take her anywhere for weeks.</p>
<p>So she stayed quiet unless Rio tagged her in.</p>
<p>As a result, she spent a whole lot of time in all kinds of places. Warehouses, restaurants, bars, art openings, a country club.</p>
<p>One night, they were back in a warehouse, although it had clearly been renovated recently. Beth had started the meeting wondering if that was why the guy - clean cut and respectable looking - they were meeting was tied up with Rio. Then he opened his mouth and Beth understood that he was just an asshole. It had been downhill from there.</p>
<p>Rio’s jaw tensed and Beth just knew that he was not taking what this guy had said kindly.</p>
<p>“What did you say?” His voice was deceptively calm. Almost sweet.</p>
<p>Beth swallowed.</p>
<p>“I said that you and your bitch can -“ he was cut off by Rio’s fist colliding with his face. Rio’s guys stepped a little closer, in case he needed them, but Rio didn’t get where he was by being bad in a fight. It wasn’t even much of one. Rio hit him a couple of times, then stepped back, looking furious.</p>
<p>“Don’t you fucking dare speak about her like that,” Rio told him, flexing his hand. Beth grabbed it, looking at his knuckles and trying to figure out if any of the blood is his. With a sigh, she went into her bag to grab a pack of tissues. “You’ll do your fucking job on the timeline you were given.”</p>
<p>With that, he turned to walk towards his car. Beth followed after him, getting into the passenger’s side right as he turned the car on. She had the thought that had she not made it in, he would have just driven away anyways.</p>
<p>“I need to clean your hand, Rio,” she told him.</p>
<p>He didn’t say anything, knuckles tight on the steering wheel.</p>
<p>“Rio!” she snapped after a moment. “I need to -“</p>
<p>“I heard you the first time,” he cut her off. But he didn’t give her his hand. He just drove to her place and screeched to a halt in front of the driveway.</p>
<p>Beth sighed and reached over to turn off the ignition. “Rio,” she said, as stern as she can, “I need to clean your hand. And you shouldn’t drive if you’re this worked up.”</p>
<p>His head jerked in her direction and he had this look on his face, like he couldn’t believe something that she’d just said. He laughed, but undid his seatbelt and followed her into the house. </p>
<p>She led him to the en suite, where she’d taken to storing a full first-aid kit, away from the eyes of visitors and the kids.</p>
<p>“You didn’t have to hit that guy.”</p>
<p>“No?” Rio said, watching her as she cleaned his knuckles. “And the next time someone disrespects you? If it gets physical? If I’m not there?”</p>
<p>Beth swiped at the blood around the split skin.</p>
<p>“Nah.” He shook his head. “Not taking that chance with you. They need to learn. Disrespect against you is disrespect to me and it’ll get treated as such.”</p>
<p>Beth couldn’t swallow past the lump in her throat. She just kept cleaning his hand. He wasn’t in bad shape. The splits had already stopped bleeding, but she applied a little bit of antiseptic cream and wrapped them.</p>
<p>She was done. Her reason for him being here was over. Hands clean. Cuts bandaged. He could go now. He didn’t say anything about the fact that she was still holding onto his hand.</p>
<p>Beth kissed his knuckles one by one. Every time that Rio bled for her, she couldn’t figure out how she felt. Was she pleased by it? Flattered? Disgusted? </p>
<p>It riled him up. Any second now, he would bury his face in her throat and coax her into letting him between her thighs. He would be energetic, a little rougher than usual. Draw the whole thing out, refusing to let himself come until he thought that she was about to pass out from the pleasure.</p>
<p>It was something that still surprised her - how <i>into</i> her climaxes he was. He got off on it, knowing that she was coming for him, because of him. Beth knew because he told her.</p>
<p>She didn’t give him the chance to take the lead. Instead, she let go of him and started to unbutton her shirt herself. His eyes dropped to her hands, then back up to her face.</p>
<p>He narrowed his eyes, then backed up until he was leaning against the counter. The hand she just bandaged settled on the marble. Now he could take in all of her at once.</p>
<p>Beth faltered, but he made a noise in his throat that prompted her to move to the next button and then the next until she pulled the shirt off of her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. She moved onto the side zipper of her skirt, shimmying it down. She flushed as she remembered the state of her pantyhose. But Rio didn’t say anything, didn’t seem displeased by the way that they fit awkwardly.</p>
<p>Hooking her thumb in the waist, she pulled them off too, leaving her in her bra and panties. She took a step towards him, wanting to even the score, but he shook his head.</p>
<p>“Keep going,” he said. Demanded, more like.</p>
<p>So she reached up behind her back to undo her bra, leading the straps down her arms and dropping it to the ground. Rio didn’t say anything, but he took his right hand from the counter and adjusted himself in his jeans. Her panties joined the rest of her clothing.</p>
<p>“Come here.” His voice dropped just a little bit lower and it made Beth shiver in anticipation as she did just that.</p>
<p>Rio hoisted her onto the counter, not caring when she yelped at the cold. He was too busy unzipping his jeans, pulling them down just far enough that he could get his cock inside of her. Beth moaned at the suddenness of it. He was still in all of his clothes except for the jean jacket she’d made him take off before bandaging him up.</p>
<p>It made her feel more naked. If that was possible.</p>
<p>She breathed his name into the air between them and he chased the sound of it to press their mouths together, to open her lips to his tongue.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” he cursed, grabbing the back of her neck. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”</p>
<p>When he said it, Beth immediately hated it. She wrapped her legs tighter around his waist so that she could pull herself semi-upright.</p>
<p>“Don’t say that,” she snapped, grabbing the front of his shirt.</p>
<p>He smiled down at her. “I’ll say what I want,” he reminded her, tone too cold for what they were currently doing. So Beth tightened herself around him, needing him to remember that he wasn’t the only one in control.</p>
<p>Rio grunted, hips stuttering.</p>
<p>He cupped the back of her head to stop it from knocking into the mirror with the force of his thrusts. “I’m gonna come in you,” he said.</p>
<p>Beth shivered. She would say that he never seemed to remember to wrap up, but it wasn’t like she told him to. He made a conscious choice to fuck her raw every time. It’d serve him right if she had something.</p>
<p>It’d serve her right if <i>he</i> did.</p>
<p>So much of what they were doing was wrong. They should stop falling together like this, but neither of them could help it. As Beth scrambled to hook her arm around his neck, she knew that, as wrong as it was, she wasn’t going to be the one to stop it.</p>
<p>“First, you need to come for me,” he said, snapping his hips against hers. “Or maybe I shouldn’t even let you.”</p>
<p>Beth hissed.</p>
<p>Despite the taunt, he shoved his hand in between them to rub furiously at her clit. There was nothing gentle about his touch, the way he was applying pressure. But he knew by now that Beth didn’t necessarily need, or want, gentle. She wanted this. Him.</p>
<p>The bandage she’d applied to Rio’s hands brushed against her belly and the memory of Rio throwing the punch appeared in her mind. The grace of the movement. The fury of it.</p>
<p>Beth’s mouth fell open as she moaned.</p>
<p>Rio chuckled. There was no way for him to know what she was thinking about, but she got the feeling that he did anyways. He knew somehow. Always knew.</p>
<p>“You’re mine,” he told her. “They gotta know. You’re like an extension of me, Elizabeth.”</p>
<p>She shook her head. She wasn’t. She was her own.</p>
<p>“You are,” he snapped in time with a particularly harsh thrust. “All mine. Nobody else’s.”</p>
<p>“I’m not yours,” she told him, but he covered her mouth with his and kissed her quiet.</p>
<p>“You are,” he repeated again. “Who’s inside of you?”</p>
<p>“Sticking your penis in me doesn’t make me yours,” Beth said, shoving at his chest.</p>
<p>“No?” Rio rubbed their noses together. “Then why you keep letting me back inside, baby? If you’re not mine, how come you keep the tea I like in your cabinet? If you aren’t mine, why do you let me do this to you?”</p>
<p>“Because it feels good.”</p>
<p>He laughed. “Elizabeth, I’m sure you could find yourself some good dick somewhere else if you wanted.” He stopped moving, just grinding and pulsing shallowly. “But it wouldn’t do what I do for you.”</p>
<p>“If I can get it somewhere else, maybe I should do that,” she taunted him. “Maybe I’ll go to parent-teacher night to scope out the single dads. Maybe I’ll invite one of them into the bathroom and bend over the sink for him, tug up my dress.”</p>
<p>“You do that and we’re gonna have a problem,” Rio said. He stopped rubbing her and lifted his hand to circle her throat. “Nobody else touches you.”</p>
<p>“Maybe I’ll let him come inside of me and I’ll go back out to the rest of the parents with him dripping down the inside of my thighs,” she kept going. The fury in his eyes was building and she wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do if she pushed him, but she wanted to know.</p>
<p>The hand on her throat tightened just the slightest bit. She could still breathe without a problem, but it was a threat and a promise all in one.</p>
<p>“I’ll let him keep my panties,” Beth gasped, “send him a photo of me fingering my cunt later, thinking about it.”</p>
<p>Rio pulled out in a harsh movement and turned her so that she was bent over the bathroom sink. He gathered her wrists in his big hands and crossed them at the small of her back, holding them tightly with one hand. There was the sound of something ripping, then he wrapped something scratchy - her panty hose, she realizes - around her wrists and tied them.</p>
<p>As he finished doing that, he gentled for a moment and bent to kiss between her shoulder blades. “Too tight?” he asked. Beth shook her head. “You know how to get me to stop.” She nodded. The softness disappeared, replaced by the return of his cock spreading her open.</p>
<p>Beth moaned.</p>
<p>“Fuck, Elizabeth,” he muttered. “You drive me crazy.”</p>
<p>She arched her back and looked over her shoulder, clenched tight around him. “I think you might have already been there,” she told him.</p>
<p>Laughing, he bent down. He didn’t kiss her though, shifting at the last minute and sinking his teeth into her shoulder. She cried out as he built a steady rhythm. She clenched her hands into fists.</p>
<p>He stopped taking a chunk out of her shoulder in order to straighten up, but his hands settled on top of her ass and he sank his fingers in. She would have bruises in the morning, probably.</p>
<p>“Oh god,” she groaned.</p>
<p>“That’s me,” Rio told her, “isn’t it? Am I your god, Elizabeth?”</p>
<p>He gripped her hips tighter and yanked her back against him.</p>
<p>Her fingers were searching for something to grab onto, but there was nothing, so she twined her hands around each other and gripped her wrists.</p>
<p>She wanted to muffle the sounds that she was making, but if anything, they echoed louder in the bathroom.</p>
<p>“You gonna come for me?” he asked.</p>
<p>Beth nodded.</p>
<p>“Then do it,” he demanded.</p>
<p>Part of her wanted to ask him to touch her, to brush his finger over her clit, but she doubted that he would. He was in a mood.</p>
<p>Beth shivered, squeezing tighter around him, letting his cock work her to her peak. She came, crying out far too loudly for the bathroom.</p>
<p>Rio didn’t seem to mind.</p>
<p>“That’s it,” he groaned, the pace of his hips almost cruel. Beth’s breasts pressed against the cold marble of the counter as he kept fucking her until he groaned, slamming into her as he started to come.</p>
<p>She could feel him filling her and it made her throat dry.</p>
<p>He pulled out, biting his lip as he did. She watched him watch in the mirror. His thumbs were rubbing over her ass as he stared between her legs. She was probably red, puffy. Wet with both of them.</p>
<p>“You are mine, you know.”</p>
<p>He lifted his eyes so that they meet hers in the mirror. Beth swallowed.</p>
<p>“Do you understand that?”</p>
<p>Beth nodded.</p>
<p>His lips twitched and his eyes were dancing as he leaned down over her back. “No. I’m gonna need to hear you say it.”</p>
<p>She shivered at the words, the same ones she’d said to him ages ago. She tried to lift herself up, but he planted his hand in the middle of her back to keep her down.</p>
<p>“I’m yours,” Beth said.</p>
<p>“Gonna let anybody else inside of you?” he asked. She shook her head. “Gonna give anyone else a taste of this?” He slapped her lightly, right over her cunt. Beth’s eyes slipped shut. She shook her head again.</p>
<p>“Open your eyes.”</p>
<p>She did.</p>
<p>“Tell me,” he demanded. He’s like a bratty child, Beth thought.</p>
<p>“No one else,” she said. “Just you.”</p>
<p>He pushed two fingers inside of her. Maybe it was to make a point, but it just felt like too much and Beth whimpered as he worked her to another peak, using his cum to smooth the way.</p>
<p>“Mine,” he said, kissing her shoulder blade, then helping her to straighten up. He practically had to carry her to bed, but he stayed, curling around her after stripping.</p>
<p>It was times like this that Beth felt herself growing more confused. These moments when his harshness gave way to gentle touches and soft words.</p>
<p>As she fell asleep, she wondered what would happen if she looked at the man in her bed. Would it break some rule and make him disappear? No one had warned her that he would, but Beth was starting to think that the warnings she’d been given were pretty useless.</p>
<p>Don’t be a shrew or your husband will stray.</p>
<p>If you aren’t good, bad things will happen.</p>
<p>Look how those turned out.</p>
<p>Now she wondered if maybe she hadn’t listened to the right ones. Despite the itch in her belly telling her to turn over and look at Rio, she shut her eyes and forced herself to fall asleep.</p>
<p>——————</p>
<p>Beth smiled at the young man standing across from her. Rio was standing behind her a ways, leaning against a table.</p>
<p>“That’s not acceptable,” she told him.</p>
<p>The guy’s eyes flicked to Rio.</p>
<p>“Don’t look at him,” Beth said coldly. “He’s not relevant to you right now.”</p>
<p>The guy shifted his weight from side to side. “I did what you said.”</p>
<p>“No,” Beth corrected, “you did part of what we said. Leaving me to do the rest.”</p>
<p>I had to miss Kenny’s hockey game, she didn’t say. Instead, she just stared him down.</p>
<p>She took a step towards him. He started to step back, then hardened, stood to his full height. Ah, he thought he could intimidate her.</p>
<p>Beth cocked her head, studying the man. Boy. He couldn’t have been much older than 25. She nearly softened at the thought, but she could practically hear Rio in her ear murmuring, “You gotta set limits, mami.” Not with him, of course. With others.</p>
<p>“Because that was your first fuck-up, you get a warning,” Beth told him. “You only get the one. If you make another mistake - whether it’s the same one or a new one - you don’t get a chance to explain. If you think that there’s any ambiguity in what you’ve been told to do, you ask for clarification, you don’t just do the least amount of work as possible.”</p>
<p>His eyes dropped to the floor. Seeming to realize that it made him look weak, he raised them again.</p>
<p>“This is your second chance and it’s the only one that you’ve got left,” Beth said. “I know that you think my partner is the one you need to be afraid of,” she lowered her voice, “but he isn’t the only one. You’re young, so maybe you’re new and you missed what happened.”</p>
<p>The look in his eyes told her that he’d heard. Beth smiled.</p>
<p>“So you do know.”</p>
<p>He nodded.</p>
<p>“Remember that, Craig. Now, go home and figure out a way to make it up to us,” she told him. “Now.”</p>
<p>Craig scrambled to leave, followed by the couple of guys that had accompanied him. When they were gone, Demon following them out, Beth turned to Rio.</p>
<p>He was expressionless, just leaning against the table still. Beth walked towards him and stopped once she was standing in between his parted legs.</p>
<p>“Time for my performance evaluation,” Beth said.</p>
<p>Rio’s eyes fell to her lips, her breasts, then came back to her eyes as his lips curled.</p>
<p>“Ride me.”</p>
<p>Beth’s eyes widened, then went to the door. Demon was gone. The others were outside, where they would stay until Rio called them in.</p>
<p>He slid back so that he was sitting on the table.</p>
<p>“Not here,” Beth said.</p>
<p>“Yes here,” Rio shot back.</p>
<p>Beth shuffled even closer. Lips hovering near his, she replied, “No.” There was no way in hell she was having sex in this place. She wasn’t even sure that the table would be up to holding them. “I’m not getting tetanus because you can’t keep it your pants long enough for us to get somewhere comfortable.”</p>
<p>Rio chuckled. “There she is,” he murmured, then kissed her, “my boss bitch.” He stood, forcing Beth back a little. “Let’s go then. I want you.”</p>
<p>She wound up riding him in his car, making a mess of the backseat. Rio just laughed it off as he sucked a hickey into the skin between her breasts. “Souvenir,” he said, then drove her home to relieve the babysitter.</p>
<p>That night, she stood in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror as she traced the teeth marks on her skin and shivered at the sensation. Rio liked to call her his boss bitch when she took control, when she ran a meet or a deal. He <i>liked</i> it.</p>
<p>Without meaning to, her thoughts went to the dinner she’d had with Dean when she’d given her ideas about Boland Motors. The way that he’d shut her down, belittled her.</p>
<p>And later, “Does he encourage you? Listen to you?”</p>
<p>Beth had told him it was the sex, which was only a little bit true. The sex was amazing, but that was part of the way Rio treated her. She was an equal in truth now. He no longer tried to shelter her from the harshness of the world. Not since before Ricardo. Not since she shot him and left him for dead.</p>
<p>———————————</p>
<p>“Remember what I kept saying to you, back in the day?” Rio asked one night as they lay in bed.</p>
<p>Beth furrowed her brow. “You said a lot of stuff, Rio.”</p>
<p>“’Bout you dealing with your rotten eggs, learning to take care of shit. Accepting who you are,” Rio said, tracing whorls on the skin over her heart.</p>
<p>Beth nodded. “Yeah.”</p>
<p>“You said be careful what you wish for, after Ricardo.” Beth remembered. “Ricardo gone wasn’t my wish, Elizabeth.”</p>
<p>“What was?” she asked.</p>
<p>He flattened his hand, palm warm on her chest. “It was for you to stop fucking around, playing innocent and stupid the second any problem came up. I wanted you to become who you were supposed to be. Wanted you with me.”</p>
<p>Beth blinked.</p>
<p>“Got what I wanted,” he said.</p>
<p>She looked down at his bare chest, the three scars there, and widened her eyes. “You paid too much for it,” she whispered.</p>
<p>“Nah,” Rio drawled, picking up her hand and bringing it to his chest. He flattened her palm there, then returned his hand to where it had been on her heart. “Bit of pain ain’t bad. What did you wish for that went so bad, that made you say that?”</p>
<p>“I wanted you to go away,” she admitted.</p>
<p>He laughed. “I did.”</p>
<p>“And I paid for that,” Beth said. “The guilt, the fear, Ricardo. Besides, you came back.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I’m like a bad penny,” he told her with a grin. “You mad I came back though?”</p>
<p>She shook her head.</p>
<p>“Then you got what you wished for, suffered for it, then got what you needed, yeah? Same as me.” Rio sounded so sure of himself as he said it, said that her shooting him had been worth it because it had brought them here.</p>
<p>“That’s insane, Rio.”</p>
<p>He shook his head, then came over her, nudging her legs apart. “Insane is how I feel every minute I’m not inside of you.” She hadn’t even noticed him getting hard again, but he thrust inside of her, making her gasp.</p>
<p>“Rio.” Beth clutched at his shoulders.</p>
<p>He set a hard pace, not gentle and slow like they had fucked earlier.</p>
<p>“That’s it,” he coaxed her, “look at me. I’m the one doing this to you. Who am I, Elizabeth?”</p>
<p>“Rio,” she gasped when his thumb started to tease her clit.</p>
<p>He nodded. “Who am I?”</p>
<p>“Rio,” she had to concentrate on keeping her hands in place as her second orgasm of the night approached.</p>
<p>This time he shook his head. “Who am I?”</p>
<p>“You’re mine,” Beth moaned.</p>
<p>That made him laugh and bend down to press his lips to hers, but when he straightened up, he stopped playing with her clit, keeping her on the precipice. “What am I?” he asked. “What did I tell you that night at your place, when you came in and found me - your husband tied up.”</p>
<p>Beth squeezed his shoulders tighter. “You’re the king.”</p>
<p>He started rubbing her again and Beth nearly wailed as she came, wrapping her legs around his hips to keep him as close as she could. It took a couple more thrusts for him to follow. He dropped his head so it was pressed against her throat, grunting into her skin before opening his mouth and biting.</p>
<p>Beth wasn’t sure if that caused another orgasm or if it just made the second orgasm really long, but it seemed to take forever for her to come back down. When she did, her hands were around Rio’s neck, stroking the smooth skin there as he went to town on marking her up.</p>
<p>Rio lifted his head. “You okay?” he asked, withdrawing as gently as he could, though Beth winced all the same.</p>
<p>She nodded.</p>
<p>“Be right back,” he said, giving her a sweet kiss before guiding her legs back down. She watched his ass as he walked to the bathroom, then dropped her head back and groaned. It took a minute for her to shimmy to the edge of the bed and stand up. Her legs felt a little like overcooked pasta, but she made herself stand and stretch her arms up over her head until her back curved and her breasts were thrust up in the air.</p>
<p>“Damn if that ain’t a beautiful sight,” Rio said as he came out of the bathroom. “Thirsty?” He wandered to the door, looking over his shoulder before he left.</p>
<p>Beth considered. “I’ll have a glass of water,” she answered, making her way to the washroom to pee.</p>
<p>She washed her hands with his unscented soap, smiling at the stool that was tucked under the sink for Marcus, then dried them on a hand towel. Still naked, though feeling a little more self conscious about it, she opened the bathroom door only to run right into Rio’s chest.</p>
<p>“Here,” he held out a shirt to her. “Didn’t think you’d be up to wandering around naked yet.”</p>
<p>Beth took the shirt and tilted her head back to look at him. “Thanks.” How had he known exactly what she thinking? She slipped it over her head and followed him to the bed, where he’d already set a glass of water for her. Beth drank it all in one go.</p>
<p>Rio chuckled, lying back against a pile of pillows. Setting the glass down, Beth climbed onto the bed with him. She curled into his chest, feeling a little burst of heat when his arm came up around her, his hand tugging up the hem of his shirt so that he could settle it on her bare ass.</p>
<p>“The king, huh?” she said, drawing shapes on his chest with her fingers.</p>
<p>His muscles jumped under her touch, his hand tightened, fingers digging into her flesh. “Yeah.”</p>
<p>“You like that?” She traced a circle around his belly button, but his other hand came up and covered her hand, flattening it against his belly. “Ticklish?”</p>
<p>“I ain’t telling you that.” She felt him bury his face in her hair. “As for the other thing, maybe I do.”</p>
<p>Beth bit her lip at that non-answer. There was probably a way to psychoanalyze this - him. The neatness and order of his home, his drive to succeed, the need for control. His willingness to let her create a mess.</p>
<p>“If you did,” Beth said, kissing his pec, “I’d be obligated to tell you that maybe I like that too. Knowing that you have that power, that strength,” she nipped the place she’d just kissed, “but that you’re willing to give so much to me. Share so much.”</p>
<p>Rio didn’t say anything at first, though his fingers starting to move over her ass - creating five lines of sparks that went right to her core.</p>
<p>“Knowing that you’re willing to let me take some of that weight,” Beth went on, “that you trust me to take care of you.”</p>
<p>“Yeah?”</p>
<p>She tilted her head back to see him looking at her, face unreadable.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” she slid her hand out from under his so that it settled over his heart.</p>
<p>Rio’s lips twitched, the corners turning upward. “You familiar with the phrase, “You can be the king, but watch the queen conquer”?”</p>
<p>Beth shook her head. “Who said that?”</p>
<p>His grin took over his face. “Nicki Minaj.”</p>
<p>Beth stared at him for a second, then started to laugh. “Seriously?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” His chuckle shook her body. </p>
<p>It took them a moment to settle down again and when they did, Rio spoke again. “I told you it was lonely at the top once, remember?”</p>
<p>“At the bar, after Dean took the kids,” Beth said, the memory sobering her.</p>
<p>“Maybe,” Rio curled his fingers under her chin and held her face close, “if you find the right person to share that space with, it doesn’t need to be lonely.”</p>
<p>Beth swallowed.</p>
<p>“Something to think about,” he said, then let go of her chin. “You staying tonight?”</p>
<p>“Am I invited?”</p>
<p>Rio laughed. “Wouldn’t have mentioned it if you weren’t.”</p>
<p>“Then,” Beth snuggled into his side, “shut up and let me go to sleep.”</p>
<p>He fell quiet, but it still took Beth a while to fall asleep, listening to Rio’s even breathing. After a while, she turned to look at him. His face was slack in sleep, all the harshness of the day melting away. He was snoring slightly, just a soft rumble.</p>
<p>Extending her neck to kiss his chin, Beth curled up against his chest and went to sleep, sure that he would be there in the morning.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you, as always, to my betas neveroffanon and medievalraven and to you, dear reader. If there’s something in this that needs to be warned for, please let me know! This is the other post-season 2 fic that I wanted to get up before season 3 starts and now I can return to the regularly scheduled programming.</p>
<p>Title is from Florence &amp; The Machine's Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up). This story contains references to the Golden Goose, King Midas, Prosperina &amp; Pluto/Dis (Latin/Roman Hades and Persephone), Adam &amp; Eve, Cupid &amp; Psyche (or East of the Sun and West of the Moon), Nicki Minaj’s verse on Monster.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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